


i don't want to be your friend

by theheartsclub



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love, im so sorry about this, thats all i can say is im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 00:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14532909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheartsclub/pseuds/theheartsclub
Summary: richie has been in love with bill for as long as he can remember. sometimes all you can be is sorry.





	i don't want to be your friend

Richie didn’t hate Beverly. 

In fact, he loved her. He loved when they would share cigarettes behind the Aladdin on Saturday afternoons, or when she would laugh at his jokes that even he didn’t think were that funny. 

But the feeling that Richie got that afternoon that he watched Bill, with his pink cheeks and his stutter worse than usual, ask Beverly to the winter formal was pretty damn close to what he knew hatred to be.

His insides felt like they were ablaze, the fire burning so deep that he thought that it might never go away. That he might die like this.

Richie smoked alone out his bedroom window after that day.

He was so close before. He had somehow tricked himself into thinking that it was all going well.

Not that he had a plan, he never had a plan, but he was getting close to one.

Bill had been asking him to hang out more, asking him to stay for dinner, always sitting beside him at lunch. Richie thought maybe he had a chance. Richie was apparently blind in ways those coke bottle lenses couldn’t help him with.

Richie didn’t go to the winter formal. He chalked it up to his father being angry with him, but Mike’s empathetic expression told him that it wasn’t a particularly believable excuse. Of course, Bill didn’t bother to entertain a second thought about it. He merely stated that it was a shame before wandering off to where he had seen Beverly pass by.

Richie slept over Bill’s house the next day, their late night conversation inevitably leading up to the events of the dance. Bill said he kissed Bev in the parking lot once it was over. Richie said he needed to get to sleep.

The tears that stained his pillowcase went unnoticed, but that wasn’t anything new. Richie was used to not being noticed.

When Richie came out a month later it was to Bill first. They were alone reading comics in Bill’s bedroom and the words just came tumbling out. Bill held Richie as he cried, and that was the lightest Richie had felt in months. He only wished that it would’ve stayed.

When Bill told Richie he was his best friend, he smiled. When they hugged, Richie pressed his face into the warmth of Bill’s neck as he always did. It was safe there. What Bill couldn’t see was the way that his heart felt like someone had tied an anchor to it. He couldn’t see it resurfacing. The only words that Richie could think of were  _ I don’t want to be your friend. _

When Richie finally told Bill how he felt, after years of waiting, all Bill could say was  that he was sorry. Richie was too. 

Bill and Beverly had broken up a few months after they had gotten together. They were just better off as friends. Bill had a new girlfriend now. Her name was Audra, and as much as Richie wanted there to be, there was nothing wrong with her. She was kind, and pretty, and she loved Bill. She probably did a better job of it than Richie ever could. Bill deserved her. 

Richie felt that fire again, but this time he pushed it down to a dull ache. He didn't hate Audra, just like he didn't hate Beverly. He didn't hate Bill either, although sometimes he wished he could. It wasn't their fault he wasn't ever to be anything more than Bill's friend. Except, he never really did want to be Bill's friend.


End file.
